Posted in Family on March 7th, 2008 by Tomas – Be the first to comment
I requested a subscription for a magazine, and I’m waiting for the first issue to arrive. So I just got this in the mail:
Thing is, the magazine I requested is called “Games for Windows” and this shows “Computer Gaming World”, which was the name of the mag 2 years ago. Plus the offer when I requested the subscription was for 12 issues for $12, a hell of a lot better than 36 issues for $84. And who the hell is “Billing Subscription Co.”? Games for Windows Magazine is published by Ziff-Davis. Oh yeah, and there’s that fine print – “OFFER NOT A BILL”.
So I flipped it over and on the back you see this:
Here, buried in a nice big blurb of text they mention “The offer that you received is just an offer not a bill”. They’ll gladly cancel your order “if your order has not yet been processed”, in which case they’ll charge a $9 fee plus “costs to submit your order”. Why do I suspect that a lot of people (like my parents) could get screwed by this sort of thing?
I sent a complaint to the BBB and sent billingsubscriptionco@yahoo.com a note. I don’t know how they figured out that I requested the subscription but it has to be more than coincidence.
Please, please, don’t fall for this stuff.
Damn scammers.
Posted in Sammie on March 4th, 2008 by Tomas – Be the first to comment
Me: (singing along to the Barney song) I love you, you lo-
Sammie: (putting her finger to my lips) Don’t sing, Barney sings.
Me: (Annoyed look)
Sammie: Stop it, don’t look at me ok. I’m watching Barney.
Posted in Family, Vacation on March 3rd, 2008 by Tomas – Be the first to comment
We took a post-holiday visit for 4 days to see the family, since the flights to Cincy are pretty ridiculous during the holidays. It’s amazing to see your own kids grow up, but it’s even more incredible to see other people’s children, the ones that you see regularly but not too often. It’s been about 2 years since we saw my cousin’s family, and her son must have grown 6 inches in that time. My nephew, Nathan, is a 1st grader and he looks like a *kid* instead of a toddler. But he still plays really well with Sammie and is still obsessed with Spiderman, so it’s nice to see that some things don’t change.
Sammie seemed to get right into the swing of things, and after a few minutes she seemed to remember everybody no matter where we went. The best part is that she gets along great with my mom (Grandma Ursula), giving Huong and I some space. She had a lot of fun walking going on walks with her and their dog.
Weather-wise, Cincinnati in February is a cold place. It was a lot of freezing rain and occasional snow mixed in for good measure. Sammie didn’t seem to mind in the least that she was playing more with ice than snow. The drive down from Columbus the night we arrived was pretty exciting – it’s been a while since I’ve driven in snow, and the freeways hadn’t been plowed or salted yet. A nice reminder why I moved to California.
A nice trip overall, the only thing missing was cheese coneys. My mom was on another cooking kick, so there was always a home-cooked meal waiting. I guess I can live with that.
